I'm about to go to bed. I just checked e-mail. There were no Right-Wing attacks because of my uppity point giving. But I was struck by one pattern. I did receive mail unrelated to my recent messages. Anti-Kerry, of course. Anti-Democrat. Blah, blah, blah.

It occurred to me that it was ironic that the same pattern of crap I get from Religious Right organizations pretty much matches what I get from my relatives. For instance, from WorldNetDaily I received 3 messages; one titled "Kerry's Purple Heart awarded for scratch on his arm," one titled "Kerry lawyers issue veiled threat to TV stations" and one titled "America's role in Bible prophecy". Negative attack after negative attack, followed by "But God loves you and God loves this country."

I get the same pattern from my well-meaning but misguided relatives. Tonight I got one forwarded message from a relative reportedly written by some professor that parsed the 2000 Presidential election data and came to the conclusion that "the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements & living off government welfare..." Excuse me? Of course, along with this piece of misinformation, lies and distortion the relative sent another e-mail that reminded me of God's love.

All my life I have half-joked that there are going to be a lot of surprised Christians shovelling coal in Hell come Judgement Day. As I've gotten older I've realized that this is absolutely true. I don't know how people can call themselves moral Christians and yet participate so wantonly in the dissemination of outright lies against other Christians and other Americans. I firmly believe that if Christian theology is the right way, then a lot of Christians are going to have a lot of explaining to do when they die. And if the GOP, by its affiliation with Right Wing Christian extremists and their organizations, is a political embodiment of the Will of God, then that makes God an asshole who must be fought on every front. I, however, do not believe that the GOP is God's will. Nor do I believe that God is an asshole. So where does that leave the people who are reportedly living their lives in emulation of Jesus Christ, and yet spread lies and deceit?

Shovelling coal, my friend. Shovelling coal.